CASCA/SANA 2016 Panel CFP: North American Borders/Borderlands

CFP: North American Borders/Borderlands



Panel to be proposed for the CASCA/SANA annual meetings at Dalhousie
University, May 11 - 15, 2016


Anthropological study of borders and borderlands in North America have been
dominated by ethnography and theory about the Mexico-USA border "where the
third world grates against the first and bleeds" (Anzaldúa 1987). However,
North America is also the site of multiple political, cultural, or
linguistic borders/borderlands between Indigenous peoples, European
empires, and contemporary nation-states. The objective of this panel is to
make these zones of interaction visible through careful ethnographic work
and theorize North American borders and borderlands in historical,
critical, and/or comparative perspective. Papers in this session will take
up the study of North America from its limits and crossings, from sites of
connection and entanglement, and from positions of solidarity, division, or
refusal. In this way, scholars can better understand the making, unmaking,
and refusal of borders, the characteristics of borderland life, and work to
build solidarities across space.



Interested scholars should send a title and 150-word abstract to Sara
Komarnisky (sarak@ualberta.ca) by January 31, 2016.